Minority Students

Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the longtime president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County whose trailblazing work in educating minority students in the sciences has catapulted the university onto the national stage, has been recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the world. Hrabowski will join a renowned crowd of dignitaries, foreign heads of state, celebrities, activists and other reformers on Time magazine's 2012 Top 100 Most Influential People, due to be released Wednesday.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for highs in the lower 60s and a chance for afternoon showers. Lows are expected to be in the upper 40s tonight. TRAFFIC Check our traffic map for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Three arrested in May 2011 shooting of 12-year-old boy : Police said Danyae Robinson, 29; Antwan Mosley, 21; and Derrick E. Brown, 17, have each been charged with murder and three counts of attempted murder after being arrested by the warrant apprehension task force.

A new report on university systems from 24 states, including Maryland, shows that low-income and minority students are not as well represented among those entering and graduating from four-year colleges as they are among high school graduates. The report, released Thursday by The Education Trust and the National Association of System Heads, shows that low-income students represented 27 percent of high school graduates in Maryland and only 20 percent of university freshmen. Minority students made up 38 percent of high school graduates and 37 percent of freshmen enrolling in four-year universities.

Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the longtime president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County whose trailblazing work in educating minority students in the sciences has catapulted the university onto the national stage, has been recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the world. Hrabowski will join a renowned crowd of dignitaries, foreign heads of state, celebrities, activists and other reformers on Time magazine's 2012 Top 100 Most Influential People, due to be released Wednesday.

WESTMINSTER - Western Maryland College officials, who want to boost minority recruitment on the predominantly white campus, say they are concerned about a federal order banning scholarships directed at minority students.A U.S. Department of Education official said last week that colleges and universities that receive federal dollars are barred by civil rights law from granting scholarships limited by race.The apparent policy shift could imperil an undetermined number of scholarship programs designed to benefit minorities, civil rights and college officials said.

Students from 14 area high schools knew something serious was going on when Jacqueline Frierson told them to remove their hats and chewing gum."If I hurt your feelings or step on your toes -- good. It'll make you think, and we have to be a thinking people," said the doctoral student from Morgan State University, currently interning at Westinghouse Electric Corp.The audience of 40 students listened attentively as Frierson and Jonathan Oliver, a former engineering student at Anne Arundel Community College, spoke during the conclusion of a three-day Minority Orientation to Engineering and Technologies Career Opportunities Upreach program yesterday.

In 1969, African-Americans made up approximately 6 percent ofthe freshman class in U.S. medical schools. In 1991, that percentage had risen to only 6.6 percent. For nearly 20 years, the number of African-American students entering medical school has remained static, with almost one-third concentrated in 10 medical schools.Last year, the Association of American Medical Colleges launched ''Project 3000 by 2000,'' an effort to nearly double the number of minority students enrolled in medical schools by the turn of the century.

The Baltimore County Chapter of the NAACP opposed the selection of Anthony G. Marchione to head the county schools. The Sun invited the NAACP and Dr. Marchione to comment on the controversy. Dr. Marchione declined. THE BALTIMORE County Branch of the NAACP, in keeping with its purpose to improve the educational status of minority groups, took a position regarding the status of African-American youngsters in the Baltimore County School system.Although African-American students were singled out, the condition of most minority students in the Baltimore County school system is dismal.

Western Maryland College wants to increase its minority student population and hopes to use a scholarship fund to do so. Created with a $100,000 grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the Hearst Endowed Scholarship Fund will begin assisting U.S.-born minority students who attend the Westminster school in the fall. "We're tremendously excited," said Steve P. Krahling-Haddad, director of corporate and foundation relations at Western Maryland College in Westminster. This "validates the work we've been doing over the last 10 years."

A $2 million grant from Toyota Motor Corp. will enable the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to expand its environmental education programs and to reach additional minority students in major cities, the group said yesterday.The foundation said it plans to use the three-year Toyota grant to arrange field trips and community projects for 3,250 minority students in Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Va., and Norfolk, Va.Foundation educators take 35,000 students and teachers on the bay each year, canoeing in tidal creeks and marshes or cruising aboard skipjacks and other boats.

Educators have known for some time that simply kicking troublesome kids out of school rarely solves the problem. When those students come back, the problems that caused them to be suspended or expelled from school come right back with them. The state board of education recognized that reality this week in a proposal aimed at getting school systems to cut the number of out-of-school suspensions and limit the number of days students can be kept out of class. Under the board's plan, suspension for minor, nonviolent infractions such as using a cellphone during school hours or talking back to a teacher would be available only as the punishment of last resort.

New rules on school gifted and talented programs approved today by the state board of education have drawn fire from a coalition of groups that say such programs harm poor and minority students. The critics, which include Casa de Maryland and the Montgomery County NAACP, argue that the very act of labeling some students and not others as gifted creates winners and losers, and that the principal victims of such inequality are African-Americans, Hispanics and students from low-income families.

Is there, or should there ever be, a point when a state is no longer penalized for its discriminatory past? Not according to the Department of Justice, which recently rejected a South Carolina law that would have required voters to show a valid photo ID before casting their ballots. Justice says the law discriminates against minorities. The Obama administration said, "South Carolina's law didn't meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting.

When I came up in the 1970s and '80s in Baltimore, there were many depressed areas that instinct told you to avoid, but the real face of danger was the projects. In those high-rise developments, like some kind of matchbox conglomeration reaching to the sky — or their cookie-cutter, low-rise counterparts intended to approximate town homes — there seemed to be no room to stretch out and think, no space in which to breathe. I saw "Boyz N the Hood" in 1991 and wondered what in the world was making those guys out in sunny L.A. so angry.

The op-ed by Fred Miller "'Cooling out' poor minority kids in community college" (May 9) was one of the most incredulous opinions on community colleges that I have ever read. I could take issue on a line-by-line basis with each premise of the article. I will try, however, to address two fundamental points. First, based on my 15 year tenure as an associate professor at Anne Arundel Community College, there is nothing in my experience that suggests that we "deployed various mechanisms to persuade the majority of their students to give up their 'unrealistic' baccalaureate aspirations.

Maryland now has a hard-fought "Dream Act" that offers undocumented-immigrant young people in-state tuition for post-high school education — but with many limitations, including that these "dreamers" must enroll first in Maryland community colleges. Why would a number of staunch opponents approve the act once the last-minute community college mandate was added? Because this concession is very significant in legitimating the class- and race-biased structures of U.S. higher education — especially in blessing the community colleges, said to be the "democratizing" open door to higher education.

THE BAD NEWS for poor and minority youngsters wanting to go to college just got worse.A recent study has reaffirmed that the cost of higher education continues to climb, making it more unaffordable for low-income families. The study was done for the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Education Resources Institute.That news, combined with the assault on affirmative action that has resulted in enrollment declines, means that fewer blacks, Latinos and other nonwhites will be seen on the nation's campuses.

The federal government and the nation's universities should invest $150 million annually to double the number of minorities pursuing science and engineering degrees, says a report released this week from the National Academies. The federal government and the nation's universities should invest $150 million annually to double the number of minorities pursuing science and engineering degrees, says a report released from the National Academies. The report came from a committee chaired by Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Maryland seniors performed slightly better on both the math and critical reading sections of the SAT in 2010, according to results released Monday by the College Board. Graduating seniors increased their average math scores over last year from 502 to 506 and their average reading scores from 500 to 501. Average writing scores remained the same at 495. The highest possible score on each section is 800. "Our state's students continue to improve across the board, with some of the biggest gains coming from minority students often underrepresented on national tests," said state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick.